New funding through Mitacs will help young Canadians gain AI skills and work experience and help Canadian businesses adopt AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how Canadians learn, work and access services. Canada is levelling the playing field on AI by ensuring young Canadians have the skills and experience to succeed in an AI-supported economy, building a strong domestic talent pipeline, and helping Canadian businesses adopt and commercialize AI.
Today, the Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, announced up to $162 million over five years, beginning in 2026-2027, for Mitacs to support 10,000 co-funded work placement opportunities for post-secondary students, recent graduates and post-doctoral fellows to work with Canadian businesses to help them with AI adoption and innovation.
The investment delivers on a key priority of Canada's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All, which focuses on building an AI-skilled nation and helping young Canadians gain practical AI skills and experience for careers in an increasingly AI-driven economy. Through AI for All, the Government of Canada will create up to 90,000 AI-related job and work placement opportunities for young Canadians by 2031.
For many small and medium-sized enterprises, the challenge is not with seeing the potential of AI, but with having the skills, capacity and support to put it to work. By connecting businesses with emerging talent and expertise, this investment will help more companies identify practical applications, deploy AI solutions, and translate adoption into greater productivity, growth and competitiveness.
The funding will support the Mitacs AI Advantage programming, which enables business-academic collaborations through two complementary streams designed to strengthen Canada's AI talent pipeline and accelerate AI adoption and commercialization:
- ADOPT will support work placement opportunities focused on AI adoption, linking industry partners with academic researchers and talent to help businesses, big and small, quickly test and deploy AI solutions across their organizations.
- AI+X will support work placement opportunities focused on AI innovation, co-funding research work placements and collaborations that apply AI to solve business problems and develop new technologies in a variety of disciplines, including agriculture and health care.
By connecting Canadian talent with businesses and organizations, these opportunities will help young Canadians gain paid, practical AI experience while giving Canadian businesses access to the talent and expertise they need to adopt AI, improve productivity and compete in a rapidly
